According to the 25 December 1915 Motion Picture News, actress-director Cleo Madison and her film company were in San Francisco, CA, "making a vampire story entitled The Soul's Crucible, from a scenario by Miss Madison and Kathleen Kerrigan. Many of the scenes for this will be made in the famous resorts of the San Francisco's Barbary Coast....The company went equipped with electric lighting devices which will be used for making interiors in the dives." The film was scheduled to be part of Universal's Gold Seal brand. The company included actor Joe King, who may also have been part of the crew.
       Madison was one of the few Universal directors who was able to take advantage of a freak snowfall of "some four or five inches...on the north slope of the San Fernando foothills," a 6 January datelined item in the 22 January 1916 Motion Picture News reported. Universal studios lay under a carpet of snow, and Madison's company "happened to be working on some holiday scenes requiring 'snow stuff.' Abandoning the prop effects which they had arranged for the scenes, they made use of the genuine article which had been dropped at their door, and they worked throughout the day on exteriors about the studio grounds."
       The 18 March 1916 Moving Picture World announced that Madison had just finished directing her second feature film, giving its title as A Heart's Crucible. An early Universal press release in the 25 March 1916 Moving Picture World declared that Madison had "succeeded even beyond her own expectation" with A Heart's Crucible. The studio changed the title to Her Bitter Cup before releasing the picture as its twelfth Red Feather Production on 17 April 1916.
       The 1 July 1916 Moving Picture Weekly ran a photo-illustrated profile of the director titled "The Dual Personality of Cleo Madison," which discussed her rise as a director in addition to her success as an actress and stuntwoman. "Every play in which women appear needs the feminine touch," she said, and named director Lois Weber as one of her inspirations. In 1915-1916 she directed eighteen films, all shorts except for two features, A Soul Enslaved (see entry) and this one.
       A full-page color advertisement in the 8 April 1916 Motion Picture News called Her Bitter Cup "a dramatic story of a woman's sacrifice for her people—the poor!" Motion Picture News reviewer Peter Milne commented, "[Madison's] acting is emotional and strong and her work as a director is good. The settings and the light effect deserve unusual commendation." Elsewhere in the same issue, a short review offered this praise" "A visualization of the dope fiend's dream that he has crucified Cleo is one of the most daring scenes ever filmed."
       The 8 April 1916 Motion Picture News listed Joe King as co-director. No actor was credited with the role of the drug addict "Harry Burke" despite its prominence in the picture. Co-writer Kathleen Kerrigan was the sister of film star J. Warren Kerrigan; Her Bitter Cup was the first of two films for which she received writer credit.
       The National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) included this film on its list of Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films as of February 2021.